Sitting in Someone Else's Chair (Ann Xiety EP)
Sitting in Someone Else's Chair is an EP of cover songs by Matthew Little under his stage name Ann Xiety. Although it was planned to be a full length album, it was released as his second EP June 14, 2017. Background Little begun the project just days before the release of his second album, Dry Hit. Since the release of his first album with his friend Eli, in their group Plot Holes, Little had been suffering from a musical block which made it hard to come up with anything for their follow-up release, Smoking wit Sylvia Plath. Little, during this time, was suffering from bouts of severe depression and anxiety, which made it almost impossible to create anything, let alone music, so he set the project aside and instead self-medicated himself with marijuana and occasionally Xanax. Inspiration The idea for the album came about after listening to a cover of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" by Yim Yames. Also, one morning while his boyfriend drove him to work, Little heard a song on the radio that reminded him of one featured in the 1969 film Easy Rider that Little had loved back in high school. This brought back memories of when Little used to listen to predominantly 1960's music during that time, and how he used to practice singing popular singles from that era. It had been a dream of Little's to someday cover those songs, so finally in 2017 he decided to try and unblock his mental creativity by going forward with their coverings. Style and recording The songs that are featured on Sitting in Someone Else's Chair are all songs Little had either obsessed over when he was younger, or ones that he discovered later on that he would listen to obsessively. The songs Little chose for the album are three psychedelic tracks from the 1960's, and one alternative rock song from the late 1980's. Little spoke about the songs he used: : These are songs that more or less shaped me. I was going through a little hippie phase back in 2007 when I was a freshman and only listened to Pink Floyd, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and whatever else. So after school I'd play them and would spend hours just singing and singing, practicing as much as I could. I would even take their melodies and write songs of my own because I was both unoriginal and jealous that they weren't mine to begin with. My friend Kevin and I had started a band and were gonna actually cover some of them, but that didn't get to happen. Now that I'm older and my voice is deeper I figured now would be a good time to at least try it and see what they come out to. The instrumentals used on the album were downloaded from YouTube. With the little experience Little had he knew he wouldn't be able to recreate songs of that magnitude. He searched for instrumental covers uploaded by people on YouTube, and would then download them and chop and screw them. Little layered them with stretches and various reverb effects, which make them sound loud but could retain a constant mesh of hazes. Little preferred this method as, given the quality of the recording, it gave the album a studio polish. He has stated that when the album is finished and released, he will give credit to his "internet band" and name each person either by real or user name. Little recorded his vocals using his iPhone 4. Most of the songs contain multiple vocal takes that were each processed differently and sung at higher or lower octaves. Little recorded each song one at a time, only occasionally leaving one to sit while working on another. When mixing the album for its release, Little added in the beginning, end, and during each track transition the sound of a needle popping and scratching a record to convey the feeling of it being listened to on a turntable. Unused tracks There were other songs Little had wanted for the EP back when he wanted it to be a full album. He had planned on recording various songs from bands of differing genres. The songs he had wanted to record, among others, were: * "Sunday Morning", "I'll Be Your Mirror", and "Candy Says" by Velvet Underground * "Cola" by Lana Del Rey * "Pennyroyal Tea" by Nirvana * "Today" by Jefferson Airplane "Pennyroyal Tea" and "Cola" were recorded, but never released due to Little considering his vocal delivery as being lazy and uninteresting. Cover Sitting in Someone Else's Chair's cover art consists of a cropped self-portrait of Little taken in late 2011; it was conceived in his room while Little was high on Xanax. The original edit had a blue filter eclipsing the whole image; Little edited it to a light black and white tone, and then blurred the image that faded out around his eye and the corner of his head. To him, the cover enjoyed an aesthetic shared with other album covers from the 1950's and the 1960's. The back cover features a picture taken at Little's ex's house in Connecticut of the floral rug on his ex's back porch; in the same lettering as he had used for the front cover, the title of the songs as well as their original bands are named, followed by the link to their original YouTube videos from where Little had gotten the instrumentals. Release Originally, Sitting in Someone Else's Chair was to be a full length album, and Little planned on singing other songs and had even acquired their instrumentals. However, with the exception of the ones that eventually appear on the EP, the other songs he had planned on using didn't work out as well as he hoped. After completing the four used tracks, Little's cousin Eric, who has his own solo project, Outsheep, came to him and asked if Little wanted to release a split album with him, and Little agreed. They were to both come together and release four cover songs each, but unfortunately both of their schedules didn't allow this, and after the death of Eric's father in early June 2017, Little figured the idea wouldn't come to fruition and instead decided last minute to release the songs he had as his own EP. He, however, wouldn't mind still doing the split, if it means using the same songs or some original tracks from his next album. The EP was released June 14, 2017 through Little's YouTube channel. Track listing # Born To Follow - The Byrds # White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane # Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones # Kotton Krown - Sonic Youth